The Crew: Redux
by Ian Bradley
Summary: [A re-writing of the original] A new team of criminals show up in western Europe. Using more aggressive tactics, they plan a string of robberies that make themselves first-rate targets for Sly and his gang, and for Interpol.
1. Part I

A/N: Okay, for those of you wondering what's going on with me, here's the story. I just finished a major class, and I now have more time to write. The quality of my work elsewhere has been, to say the least, shoddy. _The Crew_ has become really bad, and I'm just plogging along, scraping together enough words to explain the plot. So, in an attempt to give you people something _decent_ to read, I'm re-writing _The Crew_. _The Crew: Redux_ is my re-make. Yay. It's got a few new plot elements, and is done in a much more satisfying manner. The character development's been re-vamped, and I hope you're all pleased with the results. For the time being, I'm going to leave the original _Crew_ up, but when I get to where I left off there in _Redux,_ I'm going to remove it.

**THIS IS NOT A SEQUAL.**

(Insert normal legal crap here. Blah, blah, blah.)

* * *

Georgii Fedorov entered the darkened room, his weapon raised in one hand with his torch in the other. He swept along the floor with the light, checking for anything out of the ordinary. It had rained all that day, so a mud trail of footprints would be an intruder's dead giveaway. Finding no such precursor, he turned on the nearby table lamp. The log cabin's interior brightened, but not enough to remove the darkness that came with so rustic a house. It didn't even have a toilet.

"It's clear," the silver-haired wolf announced, holstering his weapon in the small of his back. He lowered his black leather jacket over it and smoothed out the hide. "Come on," he coaxed, not looking back. "It's safe, I promise." Fedorov slowly turned around, taking in the room. The dark blue couch was where it had been left, the bed was still in the corner, the mattress curled into a roll and covered in plastic to keep out insects.

Georgii fixed his attention to the doorway. "Hurry up!" he demanded, his patience wearing thin. Ian O'Connely slowly entered, clutching his dark green duffel bag to his chest. His eyes darted from one corner to the next, paranoia still racking his fatigued brain. "We're miles away from the nearest building in the middle of a huge forest," Fedorov reminded the hound. "There are five other officers outside. You're safe." Fedorov took off his jacket and threw it over the back of a wooden rocking chair. He sat on the couch and motioned to the kitchenette. "Why don't you make something to drink? We keep this place well stocked. You might even find something Irish."

O'Connely placed his bag on the couch and rubbed his hands together, more out of tension than from the cold. He stepped onto the small semicircle of tile that marked the boundary between living room and kitchen and addressed the small battery of cabinets. Fedorov looked around the room one more time before Lars Dahl came in from outside.

"All clear!" He announced with a grin. He closed and locked the door behind himself as he entered, and took off his jacket, his wardrobe identical to Fedorov's. The off-white bear sat on the arm of the couch, watching O'Connely silently prepare two drinks. "_He say anything yet?_" Dahl whispered to Fedorov, who failed to hear him. "_Hey!_" Fedorov pulled himself out of his thoughts and turned his head.

"Hmm?"

"_Did he say anything yet?_" Fedorov shrugged. O'Connely had been silent since they left the city, his head hung loosely in front of him, like he felt _bad_ about doing the right thing.

"_Hey, it's better than the last guy we had to baby-sit!_" Dahl stifled a chuckle with the palm of his hand. A class with brown liquid and ice was handed to Fedorov. "Oh, thank you, Ian." Suddenly, the lights flickered. The steady drone from the petrol generator outside began to waver. Fedorov furrowed his brow and approached the window.

"Hey!" he shouted, tapping on the glass. Two of the guards from outside were doing _something_ to the red machine. "Stop that!" They saluted casually and backed away. Immediately, the flickering stopped. "Idiots," Fedorov muttered. He turned back around and couldn't help but groan at what he saw. O'Connely's hand was shaking so much he had begun to spill his drink.

"Calm down," Dahl pleaded, putting a hand on O'Connely's shoulder. When Ian wouldn't move, Dahl stood and guided the man into a chair. "Poor guy. He's terrified."

"It's getting to be annoying," Fedorov grunted. He smelled and took a sip from his glass, finding the flavor distinctly foreign. He pointed with his drink, "Hey, bottoms up, comrade!" the desired effect being O'Connely's imbibation of _something_ to soothe his nerves. It didn't work. Georgii checked his watch. Darkness came early during the Russian autumn, and it was only about five-thirty in the afternoon. He had to watch O'Connely for two more days, that is, unless, he got a bleeding ulcer first. _But,_ Georgii thought,_ I'll probably get the ulcer._

"All watches," Dahl had picked up a walkie-talkie and held it up to his mouth, "this his House, check in."

"North Watch to House, all clear."

"West Watch to House, all clear."

"East Watch to House, all clear."

"South Watch to House--" there was a long delay. "Just the trashcan. All clear." Dahl placed the radio onto the chipped coffee table and stood up. He walked into the broom closet and reached up to the ceiling. He pulled down a tape recorder, pressed _Record_, connected it to a loose wire, and replaced it in its hidden cubby.

"Okay, we're all set," he said, dusting his hands off on his jeans. He sat himself down again and slowly ran his fingers over the short hair covering his skull. Fedorov was still at the window, sipping at his drink thoughtfully. He watched a line of clouds slide in, partially covering the large yellow moon. One of the other officers walked along the tree line, machine pistol hanging by its sling around his arm.

A draft crept past, making its way up the cuffs of Fedorov's pants. He looked over his shoulder, to the fireplace. He took some split logs from the supply in the corner and placed them on the iron grid a few inches above the dense brick. Using his lighter and some old newspapers as kindling, Fedorov quickly got the dry wood to catch and soon had a small but warm fire burning. Several minutes had passed since he last looked at O'Connely. He didn't see it happen, but as soon as Ian felt the warmth from the flames, his head rolled to one side and he fell asleep in the plush easy chair. He hadn't slept in three days, and it caught up with him rather suddenly.

"_Lars_," Fedorov whispered across the room. Dahl looked up from the magazine he was reading. He opened his mouth to ask, but saw what Georgii was going to say. Dahl sighed and leaned back on the couch.

"_Finally,_" he said quietly. He used his toe to push the heel of his shoe off, and used the toe of his other foot to take off the other shoe. He stacked his feet on the table and wiggled his toes, cracking the joints and letting out a contented sigh. "_Maybe this won't be so bad, eh?_" he suggested.

"_Perhaps._" Fedorov sat on the other end of the couch and did the same as Dahl. He watched the fire for an hour, and tossed another log on. Between the alcohol and the warmth, he was asleep inside twenty minutes.

* * *

Fedorov awoke slowly. The room was dark and cool. The fire had been out for some time, and someone had turned off the light. O'Connely had moved from the chair to the bed, and Dahl had taken Ian's place in the far more comfortable chair. Georgii's watch read two-thirteen in the morning. He stood and shuffled over to the window. The watches had condensed into two shifts of two. One slept while the other patrolled. Not exactly procedure, but there had _never_ been any danger at that house. Nobody had ever figured out what it was used for, and there had never been an attempt on a witness's life in the history of the location. There was no need for extreme caution. Fedorov was about to turn away when something caught his ear. It was a high, motorized whine, very far away. Georgii pressed his ear to the frigid glass and listened. It was definitely an engine. Perhaps a chainsaw or a motorbike from the next cabin, a mile away. In the cold, dry, silent air, sound traveled very well.

The son of an Army Major stretched himself out on the couch again, this time removing his holster and hiding the pistol under his jacket. He placed his feet on the left armrest as he rested his head against the right armrest. The fire had raised the temperature of the room to just above twenty degrees; ideal for a comfortable night's sleep. Fedorov's mind wandered back home, to the woman waiting for him. He thought of her face, her eyes, _her body,_ and finally stopped on the ring. _How the hell was he going to afford that?_ He'd proposed just before a major pay cut for the department. Maybe she would settle for a band-aid wrapped in tin foil? _No, she deserves more than that._ Well, of course she does.

A loud clicking noise caught his attention. It came from outside. Fedorov sat up and walked to the window. It was darker than before, the moonlight blocked by a thick cloud cover. He pressed his face to the glass and looked left and right. A weird lump on the grass caught his attention. Georgii studied it for a moment, unsure of what it was. It wasn't until a part in the clouds let some light down did he recognize the shape. Two of the outside officers were lying on the ground, face down.

"_Lars!_" Fedorov whispered, shaking his partner awake.

"Gnnwhat?" Lars groaned. Fedorov put a hand over his mouth to silence him.

"_We've got a problem!_" Fedorov pointed out the shapes and explained what he saw. He found his shoes and slid them on. He picked up his jacket and rushed to the door. "Stay with Ian, I'm going out there." There was no discussion. Dahl crept over to O'Connely and crouched next to the bed. Fedorov unlocked the front door and stepped down onto the soft earth. He ran over to the shapes and knelt down.

"Klim? Burian?" He called their names as he shook each body. He pulled his hand away. It was sticky with blood. Fedorov saw the holes in their jackets. They'd been riddled with bullets. Georgii looked around. Two more weird lumps lay near the van, their fate probably the same as the two he'd already found.

"_Freeze!_" Dahl shouted. There was a single shot, then nothing. Fedorov rushed through the front door, his stance wide and ready. A lab cloaked in black stood over Dahl's body, holding a silenced Uzi in his hands. O'Connely was curled into the fetal position against the wall, watching the assassin reload his weapon.

"Marvin?" O'Connely asked, his last word cracking in his throat. The assassin finished reloading, pressed the end of the silencer to Ian's head, and fired.

"_Shit!_" Fedorov cursed when he saw the crimson splash against the wall. The assassin turned quickly, adjusting his aim as he did. Fedorov's eyes went wide and he ducked to his right as fast as he could, to take cover behind the couch. A stinging sensation started in his hip, and began to burn hotter and hotter. From the floor, Georgii clutched at his thigh. He'd been hit. The lab with the uzi stepped around the couch, his masked face hiding everything but his eyes. Fedorov held up a hand with the other gripping his waist. He pushed himself away with his uninjured leg, his heart pounding in his neck. "No!" He pleaded, continuing to back away. "Don't kill me! _Please!_" The assassin tilted his head to one side, slightly amused at the policeman's attempt to keep his life. Fedorov backed into a wall. _Damn!_ "Come on!" he begged, smiling slightly, trying to endear himself to whatever heart the lab might have. "Don't--" he flinched when the assassin leaned down, bringing the searing hot silencer to the side of Fedorov's face. He wolf shrieked at the new sensation, and tried to push the weapon away. The assassin backhanded Fedorov, knocking him onto his stomach. He coughed twice and turned himself over on one arm. "No, _please!_" The lab pulled the trigger and didn't let go until the weapon began to click, thirsty for more bullets.

He left through the window in which he came and disappeared into the forest.


	2. Part II

It seemed to move in slow-motion. The revolving door spun lazily, trapping the warm, dry Parisian air and letting it mix with the refrigerated atmosphere inside, and doing the reverse as each blade continued along its path back outside again. They entered in pairs. Dressed like soldiers and wearing masks, they fanned out into the lobby, waving their assault rifles at the early-morning staff. 

"Everybody cool, this is a robbery!" Elser shouted around his AK74, which he kept tucked up to his face. His accent was drenched in Irish, if speech could be drenched. He stepped onto a desk and raised himself an additional four feet. The main room was laid out like a square bull's-eye, with a square desk in the center with sealed teller's desks along the north and west walls. The east wall was the entrance, a long stretch of heavy glass windows reinforced by steel columns, decorated enough to maintain elegance but still close together and tough enough to stop a speeding vehicle. It had actually been a problem for the Crew; they liked driving stuff through the front door.

Moser stepped up to the thick Plexiglas protecting the tellers at their desks and jabbed the muzzle of his weapon against it.

"Get back! Step back!" he shouted. When he wasn't convinced they were threatened, he fired a shot into the barrier. The heavy-grain 5.45mm bullet tore through the tough flaky layers and exploded out the other side, sending small shards of glass flying into the frightened employees. They listened, and pressed themselves against the back wall. "Open the door!" Moser demanded.

"I said _be cool!_" Elser aimed his weapon at the chest of one of the red-suited security guards. "Get your hands on your head and get on the floor!" Doonigan came from the doorway and clubbed the man to the ground with the butt of his shotgun. "Thank you, number five," Elser said, tilting an invisible hat. The raccoon slowly turned on the desk, being sure to point his rifle at each person in the bank as he did so. "Good morning! My name is number One, and this here is number Two and all the way to Five. If you cooperate, we can be on our way and nobody will get hurt. If you don't, we will kill you. It's simple, really. Now, number Three!"

"_Aye?_" was the answer from a dark brown rat to Moser's left. O'Hanlan looked over his shoulder quickly, to make sure it was Elser who was calling his name.

"We quiet?" O'Hanlan lowered his weapon and reached into his vest pouch. He found what looked like a walkie-talkie and turned it on. There was a steady low tone.

"Quiet as a fart," he announced. The silent alarm had _not_ been tripped. The team would have the minimum five minutes they wanted.

"Phase two!" Elser shouted. Doonigan and Sterling reacted instantly and dragged two heavy black bags to the elevators. In the meantime, O'Hanlan caught up with Moser behind the tellers' desks and disappeared into the back rooms.

He rounded a corner and found himself looking at a wall of polished steel.

"_Perfect,_" he sighed to himself. He stepped up to it and ran a gloved hand over the vault door's face. "Easton Securities Hollington Seven-eighty model. Only seventeen have ever been installed. Six-ton pin-balance doors with four ten-inch latch bolts." O'Hanlan laughed to himself quietly. "Worth precisely one pound of steaming turd." He reached into a satchel and procured four foot-long sticks of what appeared to be brown clay. Each had a cord running from one end of it to the next piece, with the last on the chain connected to an extra long wire. "One-thirty, four-thirty, seven-thirty and ten-thirty." He used the adhesive on each stick to attach the explosive to the rounded doorway, placing them where, on a clock, the hours he recalled from memory would be.

"Four minutes!" Moser shouted from the main room. O'Hanlan held up a hand in acknowledgement, and then returned to preparing the breach. He double-checked the connections and ran the line back out into the lobby.

"Sticks stuck!" Neal shouted, waving his arms. "Grab your balls and get ready to duck!" he took cover behind a corner and plugged the closer ear with a finger. In his other hand, he held the end of the cord and a small plunger. The tip of the button read: _Bang._ He kept one eye cracked and focused on Moser, who was staring at his wrist. There was a long hiatus, with only the sound of heavy breathing echoing off the marble walls.

"_Now!_" Moser hollered, making a downward swipe with his other arm. It sounded like someone dropped a very large cardboard box on the floor. In reality, the four wads of explosives had cut through the expansion bolt that extended into the concrete wall around the door. The door shuddered, but remained closed. At that same instant, an alarm, _not directly connected to the Parisian police,_ turned on. Sixty miles away at an Easton Securities operator station, a computer screen flickered to life, displaying the location and the type of emergency.

Moser was waiting for the call by the blue and white Easton telephone.

"_Bonjour! _Sixth National Bank of France, Paris. How may I help you?" he greeted in his most friendly, managerial voice.

"Hello, sir, this is Easton Securities. We've detected a breach in your safe's security system. Is everything normal? Shall I summon the police to your location?" Moser smiled as he answered.

"No, no, everything is just fine. I can see the safe from here. We have it under control." The operator checked the display. The manager of the bank had been told to tell Easton Securities that he could 'see the vault' and to use the specific term 'have it under control'. Only high-ranking Easton Security employees and the bank manager himself knew that, as well as the 'Red-Alert' phrase of 'We are doing fine;' used in the event that the manager is forced to answer the phone and pretend there isn't a robbery. The Crew knew better than to let that happen. The operator and the "manager" exchanged a few more words, each time the operator checked the screen and the Red-Alert phrase to see if it popped up. When it didn't, he quickly closed the alert message and added "glitch" to the comment section. _Damn these new internet systems,_ she thought.

Elser dropped the phone back onto the receiver. "Good to go!" he said with a thumbs-up. Not more than two seconds after, Sterling appeared from the elevator shaft, the doors jammed open with some kind of extendable tool. The elevator had been lowered below the first floor, and a strange platform had been connected to the cables.

"All set!" Sterling announced. Elser nodded quickly, grinning uncontrollably. It was going easier than he ever imagined it would.

"Alright! Phase three!" Moser stepped down and walked towards the vault. He lifted his weapon into the air and fired into the ceiling. "Get out!" he shouted over the screaming and gunfire. "Everybody get the hell out of my bank! Go away!" he kicked someone in the rear to hasten their efforts to get off the floor and leave. The four other men rushed into the vault and began throwing bundles of cash and bonds into a pile in the center of the room. O'Hanlan began sorting the cash into two piles, constantly waving another interesting device over the money as he separated. There was a high-pitched tone, and he tossed the money to his left. No tone, to the right. Moser stopped hurling Francs and looked at his watch. It was about time to grab the money and get out. He reached down to pick up a bundle from O'Hanlan's left.

"No!" O'Hanlan warned, reaching out a hand to stop Sean. "They're tagged. Take these," he instructed, pointing to his right. The ink bombs placed randomly into the bundles would explode once they were out of proximity of the bank, staining any cash in the vehicle a bright blue and useless. It would only take one ink bomb to ruin the entire haul.

Sixteen bags were lined up with one minute to spare. O'Hanlan ran the scanner over each bag as they were carried out of the vault by the other team members. They were all clean. The four carriers made two trips between the elevator and the vault. They threw the bags onto the platform rigged up by Sterling and Doonigan. Sterling used a small circular saw to cut through a specific cable. As expected, the elevator began rising. The rest of the team hurried up a corkscrew stairwell to the roof. Sirens from still-far-off police cars echoed through the dense mid-morning air.

Doonigan approached a large metal box labeled _Axe D'Ascenseur_, and began cutting along one side. After a few moments, he had a one-meter U-shaped cut made in the three-meter-tall box. He punched the flap inwards and stuck his head in. His shoulder followed, and he grabbed hold of something. He came back out just enough to throw the bag of cash onto the gravel rooftop. He repeated this fifteen more times, and then used both arms to grab Sterling and pull the bear through the hole.

The sirens were getting closer. John imagined their frustration when they would find no criminals in the building.

The transport came in from the east, as planned. Vickers used a feather touch on the control stick to bring the aging Sikorsky S76 to hover just centimeters above the roof of the bank. He compensated on the throttle when the additional weight of five men plus sixteen bags of cash were added to his payload.

"All set?" He shouted over his shoulder into the cabin. Elser gave a thumbs-up.

"Phase four!" The doors were pulled shut and the helicopter lifted into the air. It tilted forward and floated away over the city.

* * *

Sylvester Cooper could hear the footsteps getting closer. He could feel the heat from the sun warming his back as he lay in the tall grass, blending in as best he could. His breathing was slow and controlled, to make himself as silent as possible. He even resisted the urge to cringe when a millipede crept over his hand. The jungles of Laos weren't grown for civilized habitation, or so it would seem that day. It took a stretch of the imagination to believe that it was once the center of an ancient civilization that was, only then, being discovered.

That was the reason he was there. Sort of. There had been a massive immigration of archaeologists and other scientific communities to dig up and examine the artifacts, but, at the same time, there was a dark side to the largest historical discovery in nearly two centuries: all that digging and research cost money. A lot of money. The only ones with enough insight to the value of such a discovery were the organized criminals of the Asian ring. They saw this as a great opportunity to line their pockets with the illegal sale of ancient artifacts. After all, _they_ were the ones funding the expeditions; therefore, all that wonderful stuff is _theirs_ to begin with Screw the betterment of mankind; my mistress wants a second car.

Bentley, for some strange reptilian reason, couldn't bear the thought of it. So, there Cooper was. Lying in the grass, in some damned itchy camouflage getup, his cane polished a dark brown so it wouldn't reflect light and that stupid tranquilizer gun digging into his thigh. When did that turtle decide what Sly did? Since when did he have authority over—Oh, damn.

The sentry who thought he saw something stopped just inches from standing on the cane. He curled his lip and furrowed his brow to keep out the sun and scanned the large clearing. Of all the acres of space, why did Sly have to stop and hide _six feet_ from the end of the trail? There was a squawk on the guard's shoulder-radio. They were calling him back. _Thank God!_ All Sly would have to do is not… make… any… noise…

That millipede was crawling up Cooper's right sleeve. The sensation of it traveling over his fur was similar to that of cool water being dripped onto his skin. It was headed for his face! NO!

Sly slapped at the creature through his striped-pattern shirt. The bug stopped moving, but the sudden movement had caught the attention of the guard, who looked down. It didn't take very long for him to recognize the silhouette of a Raccoon lying in the grass.

"Hey, what the--" Sly leapt up onto his feet and planned to punch the guy in his face. The guard was a little too quick and used his Chinese machine pistol to deflect the fist. Cooper grabbed the guard by his wrist and pulled back, placing the panda off balance. Sly put his left arm across the guard's chest and threw him to the ground over his knee, then placed his foot on the guard's shoulder and pulled hard on the pistol. With a snap, his arm was dislocated and the weapon came out of his hand with ease. Before he could scream, the guard had a two-inch dart sticking out of the side of his neck. The powerful drugs rushed into his brain and shut down shop for the day.

Cooper looked himself over, still holding the guard's wrist. The action of removing the converted GLOCK, aiming it, and firing came quite naturally to him. It was scary, really. He didn't like the idea of being too good with guns; Cooper hated the idea of killing. He let go of the arm and held the pistol in front of his chest. The slide had to be pulled back after each shot, to ready the next dart. The integrated silencer extended weapon to a length of about twenty-five centimeters long from the far back of the grip to the far forward of the barrel. The suppressor had worked perfectly, turning the dish-rattling report into a quiet _whock._ The sound of him readying the next shot was louder than the actual discharge itself.

Cooper slid the weapon back into its holster and regained his bearings by looking around. Hill 112 was over to his right, and the morning sun was to his left, so the fastest way to the dig site would be… _right over the hill._ Even with the heavy plant growth on the mound, it would just be safest to circumnavigate the whole thing and avoid any possible sentry station at the top. Cooper glanced down to his former pursuer.

"Don't get sunburned," he warned before disappearing back into the jungle.

The trail led right back to where he had first tipped off the sentry. There was a Y-shaped junction in a tire-scarred road, and the footpath stopped there. The guard had been sleeping against a tree, out of sight. Sly thought it was safe to stop and take a drink from his canteen. The sound of the metal container being opened and water sloshing around had alerted the man and got him to investigate.

That time around, Sly kept the road as far away as he could without losing sight of it. He traveled along the west fork in the road, staying low and moving quietly. Two kilometers later, the sounds of industry could be heard. Generator motors hummed away as trucks carried away the tons of earth that once concealed the ancient ruins.

James was an expert at ancient civilizations. He thought he could further his career and make a name for himself if he signed up with the Lao Che Archaeological Company. The callow British tabby couldn't have been more wrong.

"No! Be careful! Don't move the---" there was a crash, marking the destruction of another priceless piece of history. Some tablet somewhere had been crushed under the tires of a backhoe as it moved into position. "You morons!" James shouted, pulling the hair out from the top of his head. It had been nothing but rush, rush, rush since the digging started. It seemed as if he was the only one there who cared about recovering an important piece of history rather than just getting out anything that seemed remotely shiny and expensive. It choked him up to think of the magnificent golden bird he recovered with red jems in its eyes being carried away by one of Lao Che's personal assistants. _These barbarians have no concept of anything but greed,_ James thought to himself. He fingered through the destroyed remains of the tablet and sighed a mixture of frustration and defeat. He resigned himself to failure and his tent, where a bottle of Famous Grouse waited for him, unless someone stole that, too.

He left the deep pit and began up the sloping side of the quarry-like dig site, made his way around the barracks set up for the workers and guards, and entered the small fenced-in area with the archaeologist's tents. It was the first word of English he'd heard all day.

"How'd it go?" Edwards asked from his chair under the mess tarp, his speech slightly slurred from the liquor he had gotten into. The badger scratched behind his ear, under his frayed New York Yankees cap.

"I don't even know why I came out here," James groaned, taking a seat not far from the American.

"Ready to join the club?" Edwards asked, holding up a bottle. He'd given up on trying nearly three days earlier, and been keeping himself well-inebriated since. James looked at the bottle with sad eyes and sighed deeply.

"Yes," he stood and turned his back to Edwards, "but not with that crap. I've got my own." He'd been planning on giving up from about the same time Edwards did. He stepped up to his drab-brown tent and was about to step inside when he noticed the guard that was _always_ outside wasn't there. James pulled back the flap and stepped inside. The padlock on his mini-fridge was still in place. The bottle would be chilled. Good. He needed something cool to counter the forty-eight degree heat. He broke the tax seal and took a sip straight from the bottle. The cooling sensation was mixed with the relaxing effects of alcohol, and made James feel more like the old self again.

"_Freeze!_"A voice growled from behind. "_Get your hands up!_" James thought it was one of the guards playing another prank.

"You know, if you wanted a drink, you could have just ask--" the tabby's eyes widened when he turned around and realized it _wasn't_ one of the guards. In fact, the usual guard was unconscious on the floor. A raccoon with a gun stood with the weapon aimed at James's face.

"Oh, bloody hell."

* * *

A/N: I didn't abandon you, people! I just opened a deviantART account and have been busy there. I used my pen-name there, too. Go ahead and check it out. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put URLs here, so I won't. But it's in deviantART. Ian-Bradley. Go, check it out.

Now, as far as the story's conscerned, you've probably noticed this whole new series of events. Yeah, I know. If you're thinking "Wait, isn't that from...?" I can assure you, "Yes, it is."


	3. Part III

James could feel his heart racing under his chest. The grip on his bottle slackened, and it fell to the soft earth with a _thud._ His hands began to shake as the armed intruder eyed him over.

"Nigel James?" the raccoon asked after a moment. James didn't know what to do. _This guy _knows_ me. Why is he here? Was he sent to kill me?_

"W-who wants to know?" It was Sly's turn to be caught off-guard. He wasn't expecting that answer.

"Well, _I_ do, for starters." James swallowed hard, to push down a lump of fear that had developed in his throat. He'd become a brave man since he first left home and entered the rough world of frontier archaeology, and wasn't one to let another completely control a situation.

"Where I come from, it would be the initiator that introduces himself first." The yellow tabby slowly lowered his hands and balled them into fists in a sign of defiance. "So, if you're not going to tell me who you are, you'd better just shoot me and get it over with."

Sly looked down to his weapon and smirked. He spun the weapon around by its trigger guard on his finger and pulled it back to his chest, pointing it to the side. James let out a slow sigh, a mixture of relief and a result from a rush of adrenaline.

"It isn't even loaded," Cooper scoffed. He pulled back the slide and let the next dart load, then slid the weapon into its red holster on his thigh. He rubbed his bruised shoulder and moved across the room, to where a dull green cane lay on the floor. "All the guards here trained in Judo?" he asked casually, even though its full purpose was much more utilitarian than just starting a conversation. He picked up the cane and leaned on it, facing James. The Englishman was still in the stance he was before, glaring at Cooper over the tops of his John Lennon-style reading glasses that always adorned his face.

"Sly Cooper." The ringtail made a bowing gesture with his head and one arm. "International thief." He continued on with a slight smile. "You're Nigel James, right?"

James relaxed his hands and nodded. He picked the bottle back up off the floor and dusted it off before taking a long swig.

"Bentley didn't tell me when you'd be here, or what you'd look like, for that matter." Cooper shrugged slightly.

"He knows better than to risk something like this on a simple mistake."

"Did you have to wave the gun in my face?" James scolded. "You scared me half to death. I thought you were an assassin."

"Well, I'm not." Cooper let the air clear for a moment before asking the question again. "Are the guards here all trained in Judo?"

"Most," James spat out. He looked at the floor, dejectedly. "They like to pick on the smart guys. It's like a repeat of high school." The guard on the floor began to stir. Sly whacked him over the top of the head with the business end of his cane, sending the sentry back into whatever dreamland he was in. It brought a smile to James's face to see one of his antagonists in pain.

"Do you have the key to the warehouse cage?" Sly asked, wanting to get out of there as fast as possible.

"Ah!" James said, turning to his bed. He lifted the mattress and exposed a neatly separated set of keys, all with accompanying paper label in meticulous handwriting underneath. "Guardhouse, machine shop, here we are, 'warehouse'." He picked up and tossed a copper key into Cooper's waiting paw, where it was quickly stashed in his backpack.

"You stay here, and try to act normal," Sly commanded. "I'll retrieve that statue." He was about to lift the side of the tent and exit when James called after him.

"Hey, wait!"

"What?"

"Do you even know where the warehouse is?"

"On the other side of the site, right?" Cooper asked, pointing to the north.

"No, that's just the service elevator building. The lift goes down into an ancient palace eighty feet below the surface. It's all heavily guarded. You can't get down unless you're one of the senior staff of the dig." Sly puffed his chest and grinned.

"There isn't a security system in the world that can keep me out!"

"This one can. Automated guns, motion detectors, hired mercenaries and _Sam._"

"Who?" Cooper asked, his lip rising.

"Sam. Chief of the guards. Wields a pretty mean Katana."

"Like a Samurai Sword?"

"You could call it that. Sam's a highly skilled ninja who has been brought in specifically to guard the warehouse."

"Well, I'll just have to go pay him a visit, huh?"

"You'll have to get down there, first."

"You got a second entry? I'd take a back way over the front door anytime." James rested his chin on his fist and his elbow on his other hand. He thought for a moment.

"Well, Edwards and I had thought there might be a second way into the palace from the 'chamber'." Sly raised a brow.

"The 'chamber'?"

* * *

The rain seemed fitting for a day like that one. Matkovich Fedorov stood with his hands clasped in front of him, his head bowed slightly forward, dark sunglasses covering his slightly reddened eyes. The blue-haired wolf was dressed in as much black as he could, which was everything except his collared shirt. His brother stood beside him, in the Army's brown and red dress uniform, with his wife bawling on her knees over the casket. There were other people there, all in various stages of mourning. Matkovich didn't recognize any of them outside of his family. He hadn't been in St. Petersburg in almost a decade. Most of them were police, and there were a handful of Georgii's friends. Then, there was that one girl. It appeared she was very attached to Georgii. Someone had said Georgii was going to marry someone. It must have been her.

The coffin was lowered, a few ceremonial handfuls of dirt thrown in, and soon everyone departed. Matkovich went with his brother to their home, intent on getting as drunk as he could. There was then nobody to carry on the Fedorov name. Matkovich wasn't married, and he didn't plan on it. His line of work didn't allow for a wife, or even time to get her pregnant. All the other children of Aronoff Fedorov were girls. Three lovely daughters, but no more sons.

Two of those daughters, Petra and Olga, were in the kitchen with their mother as Matkovich and Aronoff were upstairs in the study. Aronoff was leaning against the window, drink in one hand, the other pressed to the glass. Matkovich sat in one of the large leather chairs, staring into a fire that had been built by the maid. Beethoven played over an ancient record player on the large mahogany desk.

"Matkovich…" Aronoff said slowly, his tone not fitting a question or a statement. Matkovich didn't look away from the orange flames.

"Yes, brother?"

"You lost a partner once, yes?" Aronoff alluded to Georgii Rossi, a sturdy hound who took a bullet to the heart for Matkovich, to whose honor young Fedorov was named.

"Yes. Three, actually." The statement was quickly followed by a drink from his glass, trying to dull the pain that had been churned up.

"You're no stranger to grief." Matkovich remained silent. Aronoff pushed off the window, walked slowly in a wide arc around his desk, sliding into his chair, staring at the fire as his brother did. "How did you deal with it? Losing someone as close as you?" Matkovich inhaled slowly through his nose, thinking.

"It is all part of the job, Aronoff." Matkovich swirled the ice in his glass, watching the brown liquid spin around. "Just as you have lost men under your command." He took a sip and rested the glass on the armrest. "You expect it to happen sooner or later, and when it does, you simply accept it and move on."

"But, this wasn't a soldier in battle or a field agent on a mission. This was _my son, _damn it!"

"That changes nothing, brother. He was a policeman, a fine one at that, and his death was a result of the dangers we all face." Matkovich turned to look at Aronoff, who did the same in return. "It is what we chose for ourselves. A life of protecting others by placing ourselves in danger. The fact that he was your son, and _my nephew,_ changes nothing. We are all men. We all bleed." He turned back to the fire. "We all die." He looked down at the floor between his chair and the mantle. "We should be so lucky to die this way. In service of the common good." Aronoff became angry at the sentiment, and balled his paws into fists.

"But this was _murder!_ Not an honorable death at all! Not fitting of a Fedorov!" Matkovich glared back at his brother, his face contorted into an angry snarl.

"What do you want me to do, then?" He knew what his brother wanted, but he wanted to hear him say it. "What is it you want of me?" Aronoff slammed his fist on the desk.

"I want to _avenge_ my son! I want those responsible to_ burn!_"

"And what am I supposed to do? Wave my magic wand and _wish _them to death? I am _not_ a killer-for-hire, Aronoff!"

"_Yes you are_, Matkovich!" Matkovich looked to his brother for a moment, then eased back into his chair, slowly stroking the fur under his chin.

* * *

A/N: OMFGLOL!1! I'm not dead! Wooo! After a long repose, I'm back. Gonna be working on this semi-regular now. Gots the ideas flowing again.

Hi, Noalyn. How's it going?


	4. Part IV

"Thee hundred feet down, give or take ten feet."

_Try 'give or take thirty',_ Sly thought to himself, lying on his back, sprawled out, staring up at the circle of daylight pouring in from the mouth of the wide, deep cavern formed by a dissolving lime deposit millions of years ago. He could see a small green dot and a larger pink one, the smaller running around the opening in a panicked manner.

"Sly! _Sllllyyyyy!_ Are you okay?" Bentley roared over the communication gizmo in Cooper's right ear.

"Yes, Bentley," Sly groaned, sitting up and scooping his cane out of the dirt. "Tell your friend his measurements were a little off." He remembered reaching the end of the rope and looking down into the darkness, expecting a nice, gentle landing. He didn't remember much else until blinking up at the light. With the familiar soreness of a rough impact, Sly stood and dusted off his much-more-familiar-and-far-more-comfortable blue shirt and gray trousers, flipping his cap into his paw with his foot.

"Okay, Sly. Murray and I are headed back to the van. You're all alone down there. Be careful."

"I always am."

Sly let his eyes adjust to the dark, and then set off into an opening lined with cut stone. He walked along, cane in paw, for several minutes, before getting a bad feeling in his stomach, the type he got before a bad guy jumped out from around a corner and whacked him over the head.

"Bentley, what was the first trap again?" Bentley sat down on a rock beside the team van and opened his big book of trivial information, the kind of things that only come in handy in, well, situations like this.

"My research indicates that the first trap set by the ancient Siamese people was always a poison-tipped spear pit, usually disguised as a normal walkway. Be sure to watch your step in there, Sly."

"Thanks, Bentley," Cooper grunted, stepping around a brown skeleton. The walkway curved to the left, and went deeper into the ground. The small and seemingly random stones that made up the floor became wide, square cuts of rock that had been laid carefully in place. The passage opened wide to about ten meters in diameter. The walls and floors had been painted a confusing array of red, green, yellow, purple, orange and blue. It took Cooper a few moments to spot where the room ended. There were no strings, no clumps of leaves, and no suspicious rays of daylight. Nothing to cause alarm. He took one step forward. The floor caved in, even before any weight had been applied, as if someone manually pulled the stones away. Cooper would have fallen into the gaping hole had it not been for his cane, which was long enough to bridge the gap and stay from slipping. Cooper dangled from the handle by one paw, looking around. Below, beneath more darkness and another long drop, were rows and rows of tightly packed spears lodged in the ground, their sharp points aiming upward into a hollow space under the thick stone floor tiles. Cooper looked down at them, then up at his cane. "That could have been much worse." He pulled himself effortlessly onto his cane, squatting and balancing on the handle. Not more than a second after he was out of the hole, the stones slid back into place under his cane, re-forming a perfectly level floor. The ringtail blinked at the sight a few times and shook his head vigorously. "And I thought Miz' Ruby's swamp was weird."

Sly took caution not to step on the same stone again, and had himself upright and with cane in hand, looking out over the floor again.

"Well, I stepped on a red stone. So, let's try a blue one."

Sly was looking down at the spears again, dangling by a paw. Blue wasn't the answer. He climbed up onto his cane again. Perhaps yellow? Ah. Yes. Yellow seemed to work. Cooper stood on one foot, on a yellow stone. All he had to do was… step… on the next one… way the hell over there. Now, Sly was a very skilled jumper. He could easily make gaps that others would get nauseous just looking at. But the next yellow stone was impossibly far away. Sly stood on his one foot, looking around for quite some time. It appeared that jumping was the only solution until Cooper looked up at the ceiling. A few ancient vines had grown to make a nice loop and a perfect place to swing the ol' cane from. Sly could almost see the blue sparks hovering around it. He crouched low and vaulted himself upward, not making a sound other than the rustling of his clothes. The cane hooked onto the vine and held Cooper's weight, the vine creaking and snowing dust when he kicked his legs forward and pulled free. The landing was perfect, or, it would have been had it been the right stone to step on. Sly hollered as he clutched at the still-remaining floor, his legs curling up under him. The cane clattered across the stones, sliding to a stop on the far end of the room. His heavy breathing echoed through the lower pit, and he grunted slightly as he climbed up. He was hesitant to remove his foot-paw from the hole and let it close again, meaning he was vulnerable to another fall. His next move would decide his fate. The yellow stone he had stood on previously was too far to make a sure jump, but Cooper had no choice. He would have to try. He pushed off the ground with one foot, the gap closing behind him. He soared through the air, feet forward, trying to get his toes around the stone, but it was no use. He wouldn't come close. His butt landed directly on a blue stone. Cooper expected to fall several dozen feet down and be turned into Ringtail-kabob. He sat for a long moment, perhaps as long as a minute before he opened his eyes again. He was alive. _Cool._ He let out a long sigh and patted the rock he landed on.

"Thanks, Peter," Sly whispered, giving the stone a pet name. He stood on his new platform and looked around. The yellow stone was just a hop away now. Cooper shrugged inwardly and held his foot out. As per the normal, the floor parted before he could put his foot down. Cooper recovered quickly and staggered back onto Peter. The yellow stones weren't the right ones. Sly stared at the stones after they had closed up again and sat down, folding his legs in front of him. He hunched over and stared at the floor, hoping something would come to him.

"Yellow, blue. Yellow, blue. Hmm. Uhhh…" It was going to be a wild guess. Cooper stood and spotted a green stone next to him. He gently tapped his foot to it. It stayed in place. He cautiously pressed his weight onto it. He smiled at his own genius. "I'm so smar—aaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHhh!" Cooper, in his apparent victory, had gone and stepped on a red stone and fallen into the pit. It was only by sheer luck that he managed to grab onto a spear's shaft with his paws and hold himself in a handstand, his face just inches from the poison tip. He blinked at the spear and gulped hard, his arms shaking a little with the strain of maintaining an awkward position. "O-o-oh-hhkay…" He breathed slowly and closed his eyes, slowly lowering his body to the side of the spear, between the one he held and another bamboo stalk. He had to do this right if he wanted to see daylight again.

Cooper swung his legs around in a circle, snapping a whole slew of spears and sending the top two feet of them into the air. Cooper managed to catch one of those ends with a paw, at the same time vaulting himself into the air and landing on the narrow head of a broken shaft, balancing himself there. A hearty layer of sweat had accumulated on Cooper's body, making his clothes stick to his back.

"Okay, Sly," he said to himself, laying the caught tip between two broken shafts to make an ad-hoc footrest. "Just ten feet up." He pushed off the makeshift bridge and into the air, letting the small segment roll off and fall into the darkness. His paws managed to grab the side of the hole in the floor, pulling himself up and onto Peter again. He sat there for another moment, his limbs shaking with adrenaline. He ran his paw over his face and under his cap, wiping away some of the moisture. Sly slapped his paw over his ear and pressed down on the 'call' button. "Bentley? I need to know about colors."

"Wha—Colors, Sly? I think you graduated first grade when I did."

"I mean down _here._ I'm looking at different-colored spots all over the place. It seems, when I step on certain colors, the floor caves in trying to kill me on those poison spears of yours. I can't figure out the pattern."

"Well, what _do_ you know?"

"I've gotten by stepping on yellow first, then blue, then green. I don't know about red and orange yet." Bentley looked over his books for a moment, then looked up and narrowed his eyes in thought.

"I wonder…"

"Huh?"

"If my knowledge of ancient history is correct, the Siamese monks spoke a different language than the common people. Nobody but those who were selected knew how to speak it. The pattern, so it seems, is simply alphabetic, even though there is no such thing as an alphabet in that language."

"Wha?"

"In their language, yellow comes first, followed by blue, green, orange and then purple. Step on an orange spot next." Sly stood, looking at an orange stone a jump away.

"Are you sure about this Bentley?" He asked, his tone nervous and shaky.

"I am eighty-nine percent certain that orange is the correct color." Sly swallowed hard and jumped. His foot slapped down on an orange stone, staying firm. Cooper let out a long sigh.

"What's next? Red?"

"Yellow."

"Why yellow again?"

"The word for 'red' was the same as 'death', Sly. Don't step on red."

Sly let out a small _oh_ and continued hopping along, yellow, blue, green, orange, yellow, blue, green, orange. He zigzagged across the room several times, following the surprisingly easy-to-reach pattern of colors, now that he knew the right procedure. Finally, he leaped off an orange stone and onto a slightly raised walkway on the far side of the room, scooping up his cane and letting out a long, relieved sigh.

"Thanks, Bentley. Your brain saved me _again._" Bentley blushed slightly and closed his book.

"Uhhh, it was nothing, _really_." The tortoise slid his copy of _Quantum Mathematics Today_ into his bag and sighed his own sigh of relief that he had guessed right.

* * *

It was a familiar sound, the one of cars rushing over wet asphalt. Matkovich watched Senior Director Pasha Torenkov devour his Belgian waffle as rain pounded against the large diner window next to them.

"This is very dangerous, what you are asking me," the elderly Caribou muttered between mouthfuls of breakfast. He had been eating quickly since Fedorov had first spoken.

"I am aware of the danger, sir. It does not concern me." Torenkov let out a bleated laugh, a spot of waffle landing on the table from his mouth.

"It's dangerous to _me,_ too, Matkovich!" He dropped his knife and fork loudly to his plate. "This isn't like your other assignments. There are people looking for them other than just us. We have the Swiss, the Germans, the Italians, the English, the Americans…" Pasha spun his wrist like a wheel, suggesting the list went on. He picked up his fork again and resumed eating. "Besides, the people I have working on the case are far more qualified than you. They will bring them in and we will bring them to trial for their crimes." Fedorov remained rigid, staring down at Torenkov.

"Consider it a personal favor, then." Pasha dropped the fork again, tossing his paws in the air in frustration and looking away, hoping to make his displeasure more apparent. "One that will not be forgotten by the Fedor-"

"_Matkovich!_" Torenkov growled. Fedorov hushed immediately and listened. "You, of all people, know what happens when you make these things personal. I thought that is what they taught you." Matkovich stared at the Chief Director of Interpol in Russia. Pasha stared back, his yellow eyes blinking and looking away. After a moment, he clicked his tongue. "You will have what you ask. Come by my office this afternoon." He picked up his fork again and resumed eating. Fedorov made no thanking gesture as he stood and left.


End file.
